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Television: The New Frontier for Comic Books

Posts

I always thought that the ideal treatment for Daredevil would be an hour long episodic tv show - do it like Bendis' (and subsequent writers) run, emphasise the crime/noir elements, downplay the superhero stuff. Plot wise, make it something like Damages (both in terms of the lawyer stuff but also in terms of a single ongoing plotline over a season).

I rather liked the way The Walking Dead kind of turned things on its head that way in serial fiction. I'm pretty sure some TV series are already doing this (Lost, right? I never watched that but I heard the cast changes all of the time).

Man, Walking Dead I just stopped caring about once I realized any character could die at any time and there was no point getting invested in any of them.

And Preacher wasn't that good.

But I fucking love Powers.

Yeah, I stopped reading Walking Dead for the same reason. Every issue shouldn't feel like "You know what, Game Over man, Game over!".

A comic book series shouldn't be depressing as hell every issue for over 2 years. That's just...monotonous sadness.

I think that's the flaw of the experiment. Kirkman wanted to write a comic that follows the survivors for longer than the 2 hours of a movie. But the problem is that surviving, a lot of the time, is some tedious shit. The one thing the characters want is stability, but that's the worst possible thing that could happen from a narrative standpoint. So to keep it interesting, horrible things have to keep happening.

HBO announced in November 2006 that they commissioned Mark Steven Johnson and Howard Deutch to produce a television pilot. Johnson was to write with Deutch directing. Impressed with Johnson's pilot script, HBO had him write the series bible for the first season. Johnson originally planned "to turn each comic book issue into a single episode" on a shot-for-shot basis. "I gave [HBO] the comics, and I said, 'Every issue is an hour'. Garth Ennis said 'You don't have to be so beholden to the comic'. And I'm like, 'No, no, no. It's got to be like the comic'."

Johnson also wanted to make sure that one-shots were included as well. However, Johnson refrained his comments, citing new storylines conceived by Ennis. "Well there would be nothing new to add if we did that so Garth [Ennis] and I have been creating new stories for the series," he said. "I love the book so much and I was telling Garth that he has to make the stories we are coming up with as comics because I want to see them." By August 2008, new studio executives at HBO decided to abandon the idea, finding it too stylistically dark and religiously controversial.

Johnson would've been terrible

I find it reeeeaaallly hard to believe that this sort of thing would have been too controversial for HBO of all networks.

Man, Walking Dead I just stopped caring about once I realized any character could die at any time and there was no point getting invested in any of them.

And Preacher wasn't that good.

But I fucking love Powers.

Yeah, I stopped reading Walking Dead for the same reason. Every issue shouldn't feel like "You know what, Game Over man, Game over!".

A comic book series shouldn't be depressing as hell every issue for over 2 years. That's just...monotonous sadness.

I think that's the flaw of the experiment. Kirkman wanted to write a comic that follows the survivors for longer than the 2 hours of a movie. But the problem is that surviving, a lot of the time, is some tedious shit. The one thing the characters want is stability, but that's the worst possible thing that could happen from a narrative standpoint. So to keep it interesting, horrible things have to keep happening.

And hasn't Kirkman said that he doesn't really want the series to end? At least if the readers knew that there'd be an ending in sight then that'd bring some hope that things would get better

although to be honest, much like Fables the first arc of Powers is a little weak on it's own. (There's a later story that ties back into it and makes it way better)

yeah plus I have heard the art gets better (and what's drawn isn't bad at all, I like it) but there is some serious frame recycling in that first book and that drives me totally crazy

I thought you said you liked Bendis

that is a Bendis thing

that's a bendis thing?

of course it's a Bendis thing.

seriously?

yes. seriously.

Bendis-dialogue not helped in Powers by some truly god-awful lettering.

Also, there is no reason for a two-page spread of tiny panels in a square grid, yet it happens about three times in the first trade alone. It just muddies up the panel order and serves essentially no purpose. Knock that shit off.